Shereen Ahmed News

The Great American Songbook Foundation has extended the application deadline for the Songbook Academy and announced new Broadway mentors for the event.

The IN THE WORKS ~ IN THE WOODS Theatre Festival was created and founded in 2021 at the Forestburgh Playhouse.  The festival is set to return next month.  Learn more here!

The new album, Out of Myself – Songs of Peter Foley, is available now in streaming and digital formats. Listen to the full album here or find out how to download or stream!

Center Stage Records will release a new album of songs by the composer/lyricist Peter Foley (1967–2021), titled Out of Myself – Songs of Peter Foley. Check out an exclusive video of “You Captured My Heart,” performed by Max Chernin, here!

 A celebrated group of award-winning stars from stage and screen will join The Songbook Academy 2025 as guest mentors during the Great American Songbook Foundation’s annual summer music intensive. Learn more!

CENTER STAGE RECORDS will release Out of Myself – Songs of Peter Foley in streaming and digital formats in July. The album will feature Kate Baldwin, Melissa Errrico and more.

A large-scale multimedia production commemorating the final year of World War II in Europe will be performed at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans on Friday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m., marking both the 81st anniversary of D-Day and the 25th anniversary of The National WWII Museum.

Forty of the nation's most talented high school vocalists, representing 13 states and 31 cities, have been chosen to participate in the 2025 season of The Songbook Academy.

The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day is coming to Miami’s New World Center this spring. The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day recreates the harrowing final 11 months of World War II in Europe. Learn how to attend.

Check out photos of Arena Stage's new production of The Age of Innocence, running through March 30, 2025, directed by Arena Stage Artistic Director Hana S. Sharif. 

Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence was published about a week before she was able to vote for the first time in 1920.  The following year, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize.  Now, playwright Karen Zacarías has adapted Wharton's complex tragedy of manners into Arena's elegant, 3 hour production ably directed by Hana S. Sharif.  Set mostly in New York in the 1870s, Wharton, Zacarías, and Sharif recognize the ways in which the old fashioned social constructs of a still-young country could entrap individuals and crush their inner lives in contrast to the apparent success and prosperity of their day to day.  Wharton's title, ironic a century ago, remains that way today.  If this sounds dour, be reassured that it's often lightened by SNL-worthy Staten Island barbs and hoot-inducing stabs at Washington, DC, where a character briefly resides to avoid a husband in Europe and a clan in New York.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater has revealed the cast and creative team for The Age of Innocence. See who is starring in the production and learn how to purchase tickets.

American History Unbound’s production, The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day was performed at the White House, honoring the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. See photos.

On Friday, December 6, The White House will host a special live performance of American History Unbound’s The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day, to be attended by President Joe Biden. Learn more!

Musical gems buried in a mind-numbing story

What MasterVoices does is very special. The lush one-night-only production of STRIKE UP THE BAND on 10/28 revived and revised a Gershwin/Kaufman show with a full orchestra, 145-person chorus, dancers and a star-studded, superb principal cast. MasterVoices’ 2024-25 season continues next year on February 3 and 4 with Blind Injustice.

MasterVoices opens its 2024-25 season on 10/29 with Strike Up the Band, a rarely revived Gershwin work. With its soaring melodies, infectious syncopation, and lyrics that both provoke and delight, this lavish production will feature dancers and the 120-person MasterVoices chorus. Read a conversation with Ted Sperling about the new revision.

MasterVoices announced a performance of the Gershwins' political musical satire STRIKE UP THE BAND at Carnegie Hall on October 29, featuring music by George and Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind.

American History Unbound and American Public Television (APT) has announced The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day, performed with the Boston Pops, will begin airing on public television stations nationwide and streaming on PBS.org beginning Friday, November 1, 2024.

Stage performer and concert artist Scarlett Strallen – a favorite in London’s West End for her leading roles in “Mary Poppins,” “A Chorus Line,” and “HMS Pinafore,” and on Broadway in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” and “Travesties” – made such an impression in her debut appearance with conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in “Broadway Today! Broadway’s Modern Masters” earlier this year that she’s already been asked back.